Those of us in the business of planning and building compelling experiences have all been there. You know what I’m talking about – that point where, in a project that’s been going great, you feel like you’re slowly losing sight of the original vision and the process has become a steady flow of revisions with no real end in site.
At Critical Mass, we employ a couple of collaborative design methods that help our teams escape what I call the vicious cycle of review and revisions.
Will the current version of the Ad industry business model survive? Bob Garfield of Advertising Age doesn’t seem to think so. And while he simplifies the issues and offers solutions like blogger outreach programs—he may be on to something. One of the many problems that the Ad industry faces is that some organizations have massive, well oiled machines in place that produce a product. The product is called advertising—it usually starts with a print or video and the Ad factories across the world has gotten very good at manufacturing mass Advertisements in all shapes and sizes.
There’s an old adage, “You were born with two ears and one mouth. Make sure you use them with that ratio in mind.” After sitting in sessions this week at Shop.org, the annual gathering of retailers in Vegas, we were reminded of that adage.
The rental car experience from hell…
I travel a lot in my work. A couple of weeks back I had to be at a client meeting and flew in, only to realize I had neglected to reserve a rental car. Avis – sold out. Hertz – sold out. Budget – sold out. Enterprise – sold out. I ended up with a reservation with Thrifty Rental Car by calling our travel group. It was the last rental car available.
Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to Experience Matters – the collective thinking of Critical Mass on great experiences and what it takes to pull them off. Our past tells us great experiences are a lot of work – in planning, execution, and refinement. After all, if they were easy, everyone would be doing them. In fact, they’re as much art as science.
We’re writing this as a company blog from an agency that has had the pleasure of working with some amazing clients including Rolex, P&G, Mercedes-Benz, and Global Hyatt among others. Our work spans the brand and transactional space; from strategy through implementation. Much of it is global in nature. You can learn more about our company at www.criticalmass.com, or check in here periodically and we’ll keep you abreast on our work and thinking.
We’ve assembled a cross section of our team, from planners to creatives; from information architects to analysts; from technologists to marketers. We’ll engage some of our clients and others in the industry as the blog grows to discuss how better experiences that can deliver better results – to the business and the customer. We plan to discuss both “the what” and “the how.”
It’s been said before—planning, designing, and building a successful digital experience is not unlike building a house. And like all good homes, a successful digital experience bears similar hallmarks of a well constructed building. It’s structurally sound, the plumbing and wiring works—it’s got curb appeal. And of course a home can be unique—both on the inside and out. Interior and exterior design appeals to our emotions, sensibilities, and preferences. Some home designs attract us while others do not. Sometimes it’s subjective and sometimes it isn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Unless you’ve been living in the middle of Mongolia for the last six months, you know that Apple’s iPhone is one of the hottest products of 2007. It’s heralding a new breed of mobile devices. It’s forcing dramatic changes in the wireless landscape. It’s expensive, but to almost everyone who uses one, it’s worth the cost. It’s generated at least one phone copy cat (and even a router).
It’s all that and a bag of chips.
Only one problem: it’s already obsolete. Gathering dust. Old news. How did it become passé so quickly? Because Steve Jobs said so.
Ever wonder about the inspiration for great work? It’s based on meeting needs that have not been met, or connecting in a way that hasn’t been done. We call it insight, and we think about it a lot.
Entries (RSS)
Sign Up for Updates